Category Archives: Art

If you have an itch to hear one of the best New Music cellists around but hate the thought of traveling to Manhattan or Brooklyn to do it, Nov. 13 is your lucky day — even though it’s a Friday the 13th!

If I weren’t committed to working late that evening, I’d be the first in line to get a good seat for what is sure to be an exciting performance by one of my favorite string players.

This won’t be her first time playing in an industrial space like GARNER. Bang on a Can members are quite used to such a setting. They run a summer music camp every year at MASS MoCA, the modern art museum that occupies an old factory complex in North Adams, Massachusetts. GARNER has a similar vibe.

Ashley will play amid light and sound installations, including projections by downtown Manhattan art icon M. Henry Jones during the performance.

Check out these videos of Ashley in action. (Scroll past videos for venue and ticket information.)

I had the great opportunity to finally get to chat with Doris Laughton, a wildly creative multimedia artist and notable neighbor on South Mountain Road in New City.

Her “splat” sculptures have earned her the nickname of “splat lady,” but her work — with her art and her dedicated stewardship of her unique home, designed by 20th century painter and potter Henry Varnum Poor, who also lived on “The Road” — goes well beyond that. The house has been owned and occupied by artists for all but a couple of years in the five-plus decades since it was built — first Judith Freedman Deming, who was Poor’s niece and a founder and longtime proprietor of Fiberworks in Nyack, and, since 2008, Laughton.

I got the chance recently to spend an hour or so talking to John Cohen, one of the legendary figures of the musical and artistic scene of Greenwich Village in the 1960s, for The Journal News/lohud.com.

Cohen, the founder of the New Lost City Ramblers is still making music — now with a trio of much younger musical traditionalists in the Down Hill Strugglers — promoting his documentary films, working creating a cultural center in his hometown of Putnam Valley, New York, and preparing to start painting again.

The 82-year-old says he has explored so many ways of expressing his creativity over the years that “I’m drowning in my past.”

Check out the full interview online at lohud.com by tapping or clicking here. Or pick up a copy of the Tuesday, March 10, edition of The Journal News.

Tim Fite‘s a Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter and social commentator who’s proved his humor and fluency in a number of styles, from pop, to country, to rap.

He got onto my radar back in 2008 or so when he started performing in the persona of a well-groomed, seersucker-suit-wearing, bumpkin-ish country singer. His shows in the late ’00s usually featured backup videos layered with multiple versions of himself on various harmony vocals and instruments, sometimes including a backpacker guitar.

Tim Fite with two Phoneys, the product of his latest project. (Kickstarter)

New project gives Fans a chance to support the sultry singer for as little as $1

Best known to many as one of the distinctive faces of the Eileen Fisher fashion line, the mononymic Jihae (full name: Jihae Kim), has for years worked as a singer, multi-instrumentalist and operator of a small indie music label, Septem.

Her performance style is slinky, sexy and mysterious, with overtones of earthiness signaled by her penchant for leather biker jackets.

This morning she launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund completion of her 4th album, Illusion of You, and the tour to support it.

Dave Stewart of Eurythmics is the executive producer, plays on several tracks and makes a guest appearance in the Kickstarter video. He says Jihae’s latest work “reminds me of something like [David] Bowie whispering secrets to the Velvet Underground.”

The album, due out in January if this campaign goes well, features a song co-written by Jihae, Stewart and the venerable Leonard Cohen. Jihae’s press kit calls that track, titled “It Just Feels,” an “epic orgasm-themed song.”

Sarah Lee Guthrie and Johnny Irion are making a Hudson Valley appearance on Saturday, Aug. 3 at the all-free Wassaic Festival in Dutchess County, which starts today and runs through Sunday (Aug. 2-4).

There’s something nice about hitting the namesake town in the early stages of touring their latest album, the seriously charming Wassaic Way. The husband-and-wife-duo (she’s daughter of Arlo Guthrie and granddaughter of Woody Guthrie) are really proud of the self-released album (which is to be released Aug. 6) they made with Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy and Pat Sansone.

Stay tuned for a full interview with the creative couple. But for now, I just wanted to alert you to their gig coming Saturday. I’ve never been to the Wassaic Project, a center that aims to create context for art making and strengthening local community by increasing social and cultural capital through inspiration, promotion and creation of contemporary visual and performing art. It’s at the very last stop on Metro-North Railroad’s Harlem Line. This is the sixth year for the festival, a free, three-day event featuring art, music, dance, and community featuring over 100 artists, 25 bands, film screenings, dance performances and more.

If you go

Sarah Lee Guthrie and Johnny Irion perform at 6 p.m. Saturday, Aug 3., on the Luther Barn Stage. The Wassaic Festival began today (Aug. 2) with various art events. Music and dance start around 6 p.m. This wrap up Sunday with a community breakfast, kids events and more music.

The Wassaic Project is at The Maxon Mills, 37 Furnace Bank Road , Wassaic, NY 12592. It’s in walking distance of the Wassaic Metro-North station with connections from Grand Central Terminal. ADMISSION IS FREE, but tickets are required for some events. Check the full schedule here.

18 days of fantastic summer music in the Berkshires

I’ve written a lot lately about the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, especially in the last month or two because of Wilco’s splendid Solid Sound Festival, held on the museum campus in North Adams, Mass., in late June.

When Wilco announced the inaugural Solid Sound back in 2010, I pretty much knew it would be great because I had already seen MASS MoCA host many, many editions of the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival — colloquially known at Banglewood.

If you’ve been a regular reader of Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone?, you already know something about the Bang on a Can program. This summer’s program is the 12th annual festival on the beautiful industrial MASS MoCA grounds.

But maybe you’re not a musician, or at least not one who wants to participate in the festival. How does this matter to you?

That’s easy. Festival participants do their learning in public, putting on recitals six days a week and participating in a public Marathon concert on the final day. There’s also a performance of Bang on a Can co-founder Julia Wolfe‘s Steel Hammer, a full-length piece that weaves together the many variations of the John Henry folk legend.

So there’s plenty of professional-quality entertainment for people who are just interested in listening and looking at some modern art. (Click through to the jump for schedule and ticketing information.)